Vindicated!

For years I've been telling people how much I didn't like the movie version of "The Shining". I know Stanley Kubrick is this big time genius, yada yada yada, but the movie just didn't do it for me. (Though I did love the constant use of the Dies Irae music in the background)
The novel "The Shining" while a scary scary horror story, really tells the story of the disintegration of a man and his family. All the horrible images and all the violence means nothing if you have no connection with the characters - and that is basically what happened in the movie.
So much of what draws me again and again to the book is slow and painful ruination of Jack Torrance by the evil that dwells within the Overlook hotel. He is not a bad man, he is not an evil man. He is corrupted. In the movie, Jack Nicholson plays Torrance as a jackass from the get-go. There is always something dangerous about him, even before he sets up house in the Overlook. And while his madness is frightening, it is not surprising or shocking. It is just a fulfillment on a promise made definite by the early scenes.
No one else seemed to have my problem with the movie. Everyone just talks about how spooky it is, how Nicholson was a genius, and how much they loved the word "redrum". And I've been stewing quietly in my own juices, till tonight.
Tonight, for various reasons, I had to watch the A&E Biography on Stephen King. You get how poor he was growing up, how much he wanted to be a writer...you know, all the stuff that makes for a good rags to riches story.
They were discussing the movie version of "The Shining" and how excited King was to have Kubrick at the helm. That is till he saw the movie. He firmly believed the while the movie as a movie looked beautiful and was engaging, it did not tell the story he had written. After this film King reserved the right to decide who can and cannot direct the films based on his books.
So after all these years and telling my opinion to anyone who will listen, I am at peace. Stephen King agrees with me and all is right with the world.